Sloane Stephens’s Brilliant Run at the U.S. Open

In a dramatic comeback from a serious injury, Sloane Stephens beat her fellow-American Madison Keys to win the women’s singles final at the U.S. Open.

Photograph by Tim Clayton / Corbis via Getty

On August 1st, after her first-round loss at the Citi Open, in
Washington, which was her second straight defeat after coming back from
a foot injury that had sidelined her for nearly a year, Sloane Stephens
sat in front of the press and said, “Eventually, I will beat someone.”

Stephens has always been quick with the quips, and she said it with a
smile. Of course, the wins would come. She was one of the most gifted
women in the game, a player of extraordinary athleticism, with smooth,
steady strokes and an ability to generate fluid power at will on either
side of the ball. For years, she had been touted as a future star.
Still, her words underscored the challenges she faced. It had been more
than a year since she had won a match. She had finished 2016 with four
losses in a row, before shutting down her season with that foot
injury—later diagnosed as a stress fracture that required surgery. At
the end of July, her world ranking was No. 957. Normally agile and
quick, she had trouble running. But perhaps the biggest question that
hung over her—the question that has followed her for years—concerned her
motivation and resolve.

Less than six weeks later, Stephens won the U.S. Open title, beating
another American, Madison Keys, 6–3, 6–0. The comeback was impressive
generally, but her performance in the last two rounds was especially so.
Her third set against Venus Williams featured some of the
highest-quality tennis of the year, and Stephens’s brilliance only
increased as the pressure grew. Her shots were outstanding, but she
didn’t reach: she played perfectly within herself. Which is not to say
that she played it safe, as she sometimes does. Her game is built on her
movement and her ability to get back every hard shot with a good margin
over the net. Her replies were controlled and hit with purpose, but,
given her chances, she took them, ending long rallies with a backhand
whipped up the line or a finessing short ball around the net. At 5–5,
she broke Williams at love, assuredly held serve, and then carried that
level into the final.

Her match against Keys was anticlimactic, especially considering how
exciting the women’s tournament had been as a whole, from the thrilling
first round match between Maria Sharapova and Simona Halep through the
all-American semifinals. Keys, like Stephens, has long been known to
have extraordinary promise, and, again like Stephens, has struggled with
injury. But they have very different games. Keys’s approach is
predicated on power. When she is swinging freely, few players can hit
with her. But she began the match nervy and pressing, and, within a few
games, her forehand—her indispensable shot—had broken down. Stephens
only needed to keep the ball in the court. She did more than enough.
Stephens finished with just six unforced errors. Keys had thirty.

At the end of the match, the two players met at the net for the
traditional handshake, and instead embraced each other long and hard.
Keys was in tears. Stephens held her, whispered in her ear, sat down
with her. Soon, they were laughing.

Five years ago, on the eve of the U.S. Open, I spent some time with
Stephens,
wondering whether the nineteen-year-old who had been tipped for
greatness would embrace her position or flame out. There was no doubt
about the promise: the following year, she would upset Serena Williams,
on a run to the semifinals at the Australian Open, and then make the
quarter-finals of Wimbledon. But what both impressed and startled me
about that afternoon in Flushing in 2012 was the insistence with which
she tried to convince me how “normal” her life was.

It was obvious, of course, that her life was not normal—and soon it
seemed that her unusual life was perhaps not what she wanted it to be.
Her results on the tour did not keep pace with her success at the slams.
Her footwork was suspect; her shoulders would slump; her magnetic smile
would be obscured by a storm cell of clouds. She would play passively or
press too hard, and then face the media—which was quick to make much of
her impolitic comments—with a scowl. She told the
Times last week that, well before she injured her foot, she was burned out.
“It really wasn’t fun, it wasn’t enjoyable,” Stephens said. “When
someone says, ‘Just have fun, enjoy it,’ at that time in 2013, I’d say:
‘You’re crazy! This is not fun, this is stressful, this is prize money,
this is ranking, this is you’re-the-only-young-American, this is
Oh-my-God-you-beat-Serena.’ There were just so many things happening
that I couldn’t really stop.” She resented, she said, the fact that she
missed birthdays and baby showers.

The injury gave her time for holidays and soccer games, for her
grandparents and boyfriend. She actually did get to live a normal life
for a while. Since she’s come back, she seems to have found some
balance, on and off the court. She has been playing with the kind of
freedom—a mix of confident steadiness and inventiveness—that suggests
she’s enjoying herself. Instead of automatically retreating to the back
of the court, she has stepped forward when the ball has called for it.
She’s able to withstand rallies, but also to hit shots on the rise. She
has been light on her feet. And why not? She hasn’t lost to a player
outside the top five on hardcourts all summer.

Eventually, she will lose to someone. The pressure is back now, and it
will only grow. But Stephens is not nineteen any more. She is
twenty-four years old. She knows that the road ahead is long. “Of course
there’s difficult moments, and I’m sure after this there will be a lot
of difficult moments,” she told the Times. “Continuing to play more
tournaments, going to China—there are going to be struggle moments. But
if you keep a good attitude, it will all eventually come together.”
Where things lead from here, who knows. Her game has room to grow. But
she is off to an extraordinary start.